Sumit SinghalSumit Singhal loves modern architecture. He comes from a family of builders who have built more than 20 projects in the last ten years near Delhi in India. He has recently started writing about the architectural projects that catch his imagination.

Passion House M1 by Architect 11

Passion Group and Architect 11 have in cooperation finished their first prototype for prefab modular housing series. The first house model is smallest of the series.

Built house is about 40 sqm in net area, built in one piece, fully equipped, with concrete foundation attached. Total setup time on site depending from location and local utility network requirements – one or two days.12 hours in case of this house. It will be delivered with completely finished interior design and finish, attached furniture, technical equipment and home appliances – on site works are just preparing the gravel pad, attaching utility grids and some final adjustments in furniture fittings.

The house is designed as an addition forpossible existing house of the same series already on the plot, to be a garden sauna, guesthouse or shed. Or it can be independent development – a summer cottage with sauna; a guesthouse, beach house. It has two versions for functional layout – one with larger sauna and other with main bedroom instead sauna.

Design of this model is part of larger concept and is intended to match with larger houses in same series. The whole model range at the moment is about 10 different layouts and sizes, starting from 40 sqm sauna and ending with 500 sqm villa. This number will grow as there will be more variety that needs to be covered.

Design of the series has grown out from a concept to mix a prefab structural insulated envelope with on-site reinforced concrete. During developement we decided to go for faster installation times on site – the intention is to minimize the time and works on plot. This approach allows to have lesser impact for nature, most of the works can be done in controlled environment regardless of weather conditions, installers have to spend less time on farther locations and factory environment allows some level of automated or parallel tasks to be fulfilled that are not possible by building it on site.

This series will enter into fierce and competitive prefab market. It is designed to fulfill the energy consuption requirements in nordic countries, even snow load requirements up to 3 kN. Houses are equipped with high standard ventilation systems, full automation and management systems, they are designed to utilize a solar heating during spring and autumn, have shelter from sun during summer months, thus not requiring a cooling system. Used building materials are in most parts wood, walls are vapour permeable and facades are ventilated. Structural frame is made of glulam, walls have rockwool insulation, internal walls are made of cross-laminated-timber panels, windows are wood-aluminium and furmiture is either painted or laminated MDF boards.

The design concept is intended to have more similarities with stone or concrete house than traditional wooden house. From original reinforced concrete design we maintained this simple form and ideology – the internal insulated structure has few tasks – keep warm and be able to support itself. Outer exosceleton would withstand all forces – wind, snow, rain – give shelter against sun and so forth. Same idea has been developed also in here – the outer form – stone-clad facade and cantilevered roof on top of the terrace – will act like protective shell for softer and warmer interior. The resulting form is one design element that is defining the architectural language for the whole series. With this approach most of different house models can be combined with each other, put up in groups or have expansions like this small sauna house.